Caddie's travels far from swift

Among a group renowned for their resourcefulness, Tallaght's John O'Reilly is reckoned to be better than most. But Padraig Harrington's caddie is in grave danger of forfeiting that status after taking a decidedly bizarre route to the World Cup, which starts at Gulf Harbour, outside Auckland, on Thursday.

Details of his itinerary emerged here yesterday as Harrington and Paul McGinley had their first experience of the course by playing the spectacular back nine, built on a peninsula. They propose to play the front nine today in a gentle build-up to the defence of a title captured at Kiawah Island 12 months ago.

Since arriving here last weekend, they have been accorded celebrity status. Apart from appearing on New Zealand television on Sunday night, there were numerous requests for interviews. And they had a tidy following of local enthusiasts for their first practice session yesterday.

But to return to O'Reilly, whose route from hell had to do with two separate flight bookings. One was a return trip from Heathrow to Atlanta for the Sarazen World Open two weeks ago and the other from Heathrow to Auckland via Los Angeles for the World Cup. Complications arose when he travelled on from Atlanta to San Francisco to visit a friend there.

Being already halfway to New Zealand, he phoned his friendly airline and wondered if the other ticket he had bought could be changed, allowing him to travel on from the American west coast. No, he was told. The ticket was at Heathrow and was valid only from there. Any change would cost about £2,000.

So, O'Reilly travelled back last week from San Francisco to Atlanta and from there to Heathrow where he picked up his other ticket. He then went to Gatwick for a flight back to Atlanta. Then came a two-and-a-half-hour delay before heading on to Los Angeles where he had a similar wait prior to embarking on a 12-hour flight to New Zealand.

Having already endured some vicious ribbing from his caddying colleagues, O'Reilly said bleakly: "I think I made the booking too late. Anyway, there was nothing I could do. Believe me."

The Irish players seemed to enjoy it hugely. Perhaps it helped deflect them from their growing awareness of a really difficult golf course. "I don't think we'll be shooting 31-under this week," said McGinley with a wry grin, referring to their winning score at Kiawah Island.

Freshening winds were creating huge problems on firm, fast and severely undulating greens. Another problem for the players was the realisation that they were practising in a north-east wind as opposed to the prevailing, south-west wind, which they are likely to encounter later this week. Still, they were clearly excited by the challenge. "This has to be one of the most spectacular courses ever," enthused Harrington.

That remark came after he had played the majestic, 466-yard 16th, a dog-leg right, built along the cliff edge of Hauraki Gulf, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean. The nature of the dog-leg presents a carry of 300 yards at the longest point, which McGinley described as "strictly for John Daly".

Both Irish players were in buoyant mood though Harrington, who earned $32,500 for a share of 13th place at Chateau Elan, was still wearing supporting bandages on his wrists. This was more of a precaution, however, than an ongoing consequence of strain incurred from lifting luggage a few weeks ago.

"It gives us confidence this week, knowing what we did last year," said McGinley, for whom it is an unusual occurrence to be actually defending a title: the Austrian Open and Oki Pro-Am were discontinued after he won them.

Whereupon Harrington, facing the wind, hit the most glorious two-iron of 190 yards from a hanging lie to the heart of the 16th green. "You couldn't have hit that any better," remarked McGinley admiringly.

In that moment, memories of their wonderful partnership of 12 months ago came flooding back. And even a stranger would have understood how they had done their country proud.